Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

Many Greetings!
I am a long-time FL fan and I lurked this site ever since it was born.
Now, seeing a lack of new fanfics (Starman Omega,where art thou?!) I decided to surface and give fanfic writing a try. A Star Trek-Freelancer crossover.

Comments welcome! (Okay,in fact I am begging for comments)

(disclaimer:I have only watched Generations, First Contact and Insurrection. I've tried my best to produce a cliche-free writing with a Star Trekky feeling)

I complied and walked into the Admiral's office, pretty standard, I thought, no personal decorations whatsoever. This probably had to do with the fact that Ray just got his rank 35.2 stardates ago and had yet to bring his stuff in.

"Commander Sy , remember K-7-b?"

"Are you sure that you aren't talking about that Krig-7-b in that crazy little old videogame you are playing lately?"So much for Ground Control.

The accident at K-7 is, in my opinion, a series of bad management, old facilities and a general lack of care. It all began one day, when I was still called Lt. Sy, the Chief Medical Officer of the USS Antares, a (once) proud Constitution Class Starship. At that fateful day, the proud ship plowed into K-7 as it was docking with the station. While I remembered a lot more than the higher brass did, all that was important to them was the fact I saved 36 lives that day by merely doing my duty.

I was immediately promoted to Commander and awarded the Christopher Pike's Medal Of Valor....Ray was among the 36 people.

"Yes, and as I promised, I am going to repay you for saving me, here," Ray produced a rectangle something and presented it to me, "I hereby, as an Admiral of Starfleet, promote you to the rank of Captain. Your command is the USS Akira, a fine ship. With a fine crew I had assembled for you."

The Akira! Not only she was the pathfinder of the class, but had also a legendary service record during the Dominion War! Too bad she was crippled by a Breen energy weapon attack and lost most of her crew, last time I heard of her was that she was undergoing extensive refits in the Earth Spacedock.

I felt a bit disappointed as I couldn't choose my own crew, but I wasn't complaining.

"Happy birthday, by the way. I had arranged with your former ship's captain, you will see your stuff packed, in your quarters on the Akira."

Stardate 57604.24

The Akira is a thing of beauty, a piece of art and technology, especially after the refits which gave her state of the art scientific instruments, powerful computers, sharp sensors, advanced probes and finally, quantum torpedoes.

Captain's log,Stardate 57631.62

The Akira is finally ready for her first real mission, the practice in the asteroid belt got me used to the crew, and the crew used to me. Just for a reminder to myself:

A rough, but friendly voice came from the speakers:"So you are here, now you will take over the escort job. We have to go to Starbase 117 for refits. Hope you can handle it, Guangdong out."

"Okay," I said "Let's check on the tesebeds, Miss Kamel, please hail them."

"This is the Shanghai, Good to have you here, we are now preping for the experiment, they said this Phase Warp beats Transwarp by ten times. We have the next Great Experiment here."

"Oh really, how?"

"I'm just a Captain whose ship got hijacked by a bunch of scientists who crunch numbers like mad, lives totally on equations and love to stuff other's cargo hold with thingummymucks that only they understands. Why not I get one here and let the professional professors tell you what you want to know?"

"Okay."

"Here comes...."

A voice,which fits the 21st century definition of a 'geek' perfectly,said: "Hello, errr.... Hello?"

"Yes, we hear you." I said, already regretting about the decision.

"Ok, the phase warp drive works by phasing subspace with a Quantum Resonator in a particular frequency in a subspace weakspot, one of such is in this very system...."

....an Vulcan 'hour' later....

"....and that's how it works, if you didn't catch all my points, I'm transmitting the data and theorems to you now."
It seems 'they' love to fill other's virtual holds along with physical holds, oh bother....

....an Andorian 'day' later....

"It's ALL DONE! We are ready to turn the device ON!" The scientist reminded me of Frankenstein, just hope he won't unleash some tragic monster on our, or anyone's ship.

"All ship in position," boomed the Mercutio's captain "it's now or never."

Re: Title Inside

*now.*

Then came the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

A glowing thing that looked like a light blue Romulan Plasma torpedo shot out of the deflector of the Shanghai and moved away quickly, but suddenly planting itself in space about a klom in front of us, then it began erupting like a mini solar outburst.

The Mercutio's captain was annoyed: "All this for a fancy piece of fireworks, mind you, plasmas are banned in the Treaty of A-"

"YES!"

"IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!" I added a little sarcasm just for as the people in the 21st centuary said, the heck of it.

"You may say so, in fact, this a good description of the phase-sphere." Frankenstein should pat this guy at his back!

"Failure!" said the Shanghai's Captain, in disgust.

"No, this is working exactly as what we wanted it, now we must fly through it."

"I beg your pardon?"
What was he thinking?! Flying into a ball of violently erupting plasma? What do he take us for?

"We are taking readings....The phase-sphere is stable! It IS safe to go through!"

"Alright, let's go for it."
Should we encounter our demise,at least we took a mad scientist down with us

"Miss Alisha, full impulse to the phase-sphere."

"You got it sir."

I took up the intercom: "This is your captain speaking, we are entering the Phase-sphere, please secure yourselves and all loose equipment, as if we are preparing for a high-energy-turn."

I felt as if falling from the top of El Capitan after climbing up it for a day or two. It seems everyone on the three ships felt the same since everyone, except Slaavok and the always calm Vulcan crew, screamed like there's no tomorrow.

The falling seemed forever, but it ended, slowly, subtly, bit by bit, the falling sensation ceased be and we returned to normal status, on the other side.

"Where are we?" Alisha asked.

"We're here to find out." I replied.

It was a place filled with asteroids and a sort of nebula as a backdrop, how so much asteroids can be found in a nebula is a mystery, and we worked to find out.

The sensing and probing was cut short as Mr.Geekstein cut in with alarming news: "People, the phase-sphere! It's shrinking! We must get out, NOW!"

The Shanghai promptly storms to the phase-sphere and disappeared, the Mercutio followed in, but suddenly, right after the Mercutio got through, the phase-sphere disappeared as sudden as it appeared.

We are trapped.

Kamel looked at we with a sober face, everyone did.

"What should we do, captain?" she asked.

"We are lucky that we had Voyager's encounters as a reference of what we should do, and like every good starfleet officer, we must explore and learn as much as possible. We had all the theorem and know-how to build a Phase-Drive, so we will work on one. We will also see if there are any starfaring specie around, if they have technologies for FTL travel, we should attempt to make make contact, as outlined by the prime directive."

Re: Title Inside

*Now.*

Captain's log, Stardate 57674.96

We've finally have good knowledge of the nebula, it is densely packed with asteroids and for a nebula, it is very, very small.

The most astonishing thing is that we found a clearing in the nebula, in the center of the clearing, is a planet. There is some sort of artificial object, resembling a handcuff in low orbit, ship seems to enter the planet using this device, scans indicate that it can temporarily make a hole in the atmosphere, allowing ships that are not designed for entry into the atmosphere to land. The device seems to be armed with four laser turrets, which seems to be used to defend the device against stray asteroids and hostile ships. Unfortunately the device does not fit the Akira.

Our eavesdropping on communications in the area seems to indicate that the local inhabitants achive FTL travel by something they call 'Jumpgates' and 'Jumpholes', the latter may be a kind of stable wormhole. The system is identified 'Sigma-17' and a major trading station, 'Freeport-7' lies close to our current location.

We also found something disturbing, several tachyon signatures resembling Romulan cloaks are found around the system, they are on a sort of search pattern, if these are indeed Romulan ships.... We are in deep trouble.

I decide to contact this 'Freeport-7' today.

End of log.

"Miss Alisha, please take us to Freeport 7, Miss Kamel, please prepare to hail the station when we are in range and Mr. Slaavok, please track those Tachyon signatures and do a scan on the station."......time to emerge, I thought......

"Yes, sir."they said simultaneously.

"Sir," began Slaavok, "the biosigns on the station are humanoids, they breathe mainly a mixture of mainly nitrogen and oxygen. There are three tachyon signatures, they seems to be shuttle-sized, apart from that, I can not get any more information of their identity. They are on a direct course to Freeport 7."

"How do they know where we are going? No.... Let me rephrase this, if they are out to get us, why don't they make a beeline at us?" I was absolutely confused.

"Thus these ships are not aware of us, or their objective is not our destruction." Slaavok's Vulcan logic kicked in.

"Then what are they up t-"

"CAPTAIN! They are uncloaking!" Strum yelled.

"Onscreen!"

The screen lit up with three objects, neon-blue in colour, and looked like Risian jellyfishes.

"Captain, I am reading an energy spike from each of the three ships, it seems that they are.... Firing." Only Slaavok kept his cool.

Re: Star Trek:Akira - Phased Realities,a ST-FL fic

The blast of light was fantastic. Freeport-7 lit up the brightest in her lifetime, and lit up for the last time.

When the Explosions calmed, Freeport Seven was no more.

"Captain, we managed to save 470 of the 639 people before the station blew up." Came the voice of the transporter chief, Lt.Lee Kai Man, he was slightly depressed from not being able to beam all personnel to the safety of the Akira.

"Well, I think we did our best." I consoled him.

"No,captain, we could have done better, request permission to conduct a full system diagnostic check with assessment reports."

"Good, but belay that, now I want you to report to the consoler, then take a good rest."
At least his depression went to something productive, but he needs to take a break. The stress from being marooned in a strange space with little hope of returning home had taken their toll, Lee seems to be taking it badly.

Re: Star Trek:Akira - Phased Realities,a ST-FL fic

"Onscreen."

A masked figure emerged on the screen: "This is Commander Jun'ko Zane of the Liberty Security Force, identify yourself."

"This is Captain Sy Wang Hin of the USS Akira, I represent the United Federation of Planets, we wish to contact with your people peacefully. Before you ask, we didn't destroy the station, in fact we are now carrying survivors on board. We have a footage of the attack, transmitting now.... Hope this format works...."

"Why should I trust you?" Jun'ko Zane said coldly.

"We are now lowering our shields as a sign of goodwill, Mr. Strum, green alert.".....seems she is a part of some sort of government military organization,if we can gain their trust,we will have a easier life around this place.....

Another voice, a male one,presumably one of Jun'ko's wingman, blurted out: "Sy Wang Hin....So obvious....The COALITION is here, under a different name....You Chinese never get enough, first Earth, then Mars, then the solar system, now Sirius! Who knows what sort of horrifying experiments you are doing on the poor 'survivors' on your ship?"

"Please believe us, we are of peaceful intentions! If you want more proof, we can send you the survivors and you can ask them if we did any experiments on them!"

"Good, Akira, stand by for our transport vessel, squadron, assume cage formation on the ship, if they make ONE false move, we blow them to kingdom come.".....Jun'ko took no chances with us.....

"Okay, Akira out." I said, defeated.

"Sir, scans indicate the reactor output of the three ships is just a little over 210 MJ, even if they fire at us, it would take 10 stardates just to penetrate our unshielded hull." Slaavok's news gave me some relief.

Even knowing that the guns pointed at you can't even hurt you. You won't feel too good since there ARE guns pointed at you. That's what we felt for the next few 'hours'.

"Sir, the transports are here, they are docking with us to collect the survivors." Slaavok reported.

"Do they need any pointers for docking?"

"No, they seems to have located external hatches and are requesting us to open them."

"Good, do so."

"Miss Drayla, please assemble a security team to coordinate with the transport crew for the transfer of survivors. I will be monitoring from the bridge." Lt.Drayla Shinlo is our Chief of Security.

Several 'minutes' later.....

"We are opening the access hatch now." Drayla said.

A few men in blue shirts emerged, they were all armed and the first thing they did was to point their weapons at our security team members.

After confirming our intentions, they began escorting the survivors to the transport, one survivor caught my eye, he was a man in a brown jacket, why? I didn't know....

"Captain," Jun'ko said with a relieved tone "the survivors are all safe on the transport, do you want to come with us?"

Re: Star Trek:Akira - Phased Realities,a ST-FL fic

On our way to Planet Manhattan, we exchanged questions on the radio. Jun'ko is more concerned with the survivors and the attack than our 'Coalition' origins, which was good since we didn't even know what is this 'Coalition' nor why they hate them so much.

Captain's log, stardate 57675.51

"I've invited Commander Zane's wing to dock in the Akira. I hope this can clear some of our questions up."

"You are clear to dock in bay 1. Welcome aboard the Akira." Garon said into the mic.

I and the Akira's senior officers waited in the main docking bay for them. The bay doors opened and the three ships moved in, set down and their pilots emerged from the cockpit.

The ships are much less streamlined than the Akira, in fact, they look rough when compared with the sleek starfleet shuttles landed on the other bays.

The persons stepping out of their ships were another matter, a tall,slender woman led one tall and one muscular men toward us, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Strum staring at Jun'ko flirtatiously.

I stomped on his foot and glared at him "Stop that, Lt. Commander, this is serious." I whispered, hoping that no one but Strum heard it.

Unfortunately, Jun'ko heard it all, she must have some sort of device to enhance her hearing! "Why so serious?" She asked.

"First contact with a whole new race, a whole new civilization, that's very serious matter for the Federation." I put together a lame, absolutely political correct answer.

"Ah, first impressions. Pretty impressive fighters you have over there."

"Sorry, but those are shuttles, starfleet keeps fighter deployment to a minimum, fighters are too costly in terms of lives to use."

"Ha, not enough people?"

"No, the Federation value lives intensely. Well, Commander, please follow us to the conference room. Standing here all day can be very exhausting."......I am a lazybone and I don't try to hide it.....

"Very well."

Thus we walked to a hovercart, newer, larger starfleet ships have many of these to spare people form walking half-kilometres from their quarters to their stations or to the holodeck. Although the tradition of running a lap along the rim of the primary hull everyday to work is still going strong.

Soon we arrived on the conference room, which was surprisingly clean due to the fact if had never been used after the loss of the ship's former crew and her refit.

"So, what is the 'Coalition' you people speak of? Seems they are your arch-enemies." I asked the question that everyone around wanted to ask.

"The Coalition....It all began in the 23rd century....Mankind's darkest hour....
The war for the supremacy of the Sol system had been raging for almost a hundred years....

We had been fighting for so long that no one could remember the reason why or how it started in the first place....

All we knew was there were two sides....
The Coalition and The Alliance....

For decades, millions died for the same piece of rock, again and again.
Finally, one side manage to gain the upper hand, the Coalition....

In desperation, the Alliance launches five sleeper ships, with hope that they can begin again, far for the wars and strife that had befallen Earth, to restart free from the prejudices that have divided humanity for so long....

Each sleeper ships was christened after its patron nations:

The Britonia....
The Rheinland....
The Hispania....
The Kasuri....
The Liberty....

Against all odds, the colony ships broke through the Coalition blockade around their launch site, and headed for the Sirius system....

That was 800 years ago, when we came here to rebuilt our lives.....

We've come a long way since then....

We have grown....
We have prospered....
We have flourished....
But, we will never forget....
The Coalition...."
....Jun'ko's story was surely a grim one....

"We normally don't go so far from Liberty, but we are on a special assignment on reports of strange ships in the Sigma system."

"Those blue ships I mentioned?"

"It's classified."

"Okay...."

"Now what about your story?"Jun'ko 's voice was less grim and more curious now.

"Our story.... Well, it began in 2063, after World War Three, a man, Zefram Cochrane from Montana, Earth, built the Phoenix, the first ever warp capable ship, from an old missile. His first flight was a success, and it attracted a Vulcan survey ship in the area, the T'Plana Hath.

The first contact between the humans and the Vulcan paved way to a new generation of explorers, and began the legacy of the starship Enterprise.... From the NX-01 to the Enterprise-E, they had one mission, that is to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new lifeforms, to boldly go where no man has gone before!

The Federation grew from 5 member planets to more than 200 within a century. Starfleet is the scientific and military arm of the Federation. And such starfleet ships are excellent science vessels, and capable warships should the need arises.

The Federation believes in peace. Although the Federation had fought several major wars, it had started none, the Federation negotiates for territories instead of fighting for it.

We were on a mission to escort the test-ships carrying a prototype Phase-warp drive, it didn't work too well and sent us here. Instead of our set destination, it sent us to an alternate reality!

We figured that will open up new space for us to explore, but something happened, perhaps we didn't know how the drive work exactly, the drive started to fail, the testbeds manage to return, but we were too late and are now stuck here.

Though we are able to build a phase warp drive, we have not much clue on how to control it and we don't have enough material to construct one. Until these problems can be solved, we will stay in this reality and explore as much as we can."

"Interesting, maybe we can give you some help."

"How?"

"If you give us the technology of your ship's weapon and shielding system, may be we can arrange...." as she said that, I could feel she is trying to seduce me into giving out technologies to kill ....not so easy.... But it seems to work with Strum, he's almost drolling.

"The Federation does NOT give out nor trade with weapons or any technology that can potentially kill!" I decleared, much to her disappointment.

"Sigh....Too bad."

"Sorry to have disappointed you, but I think we are almost in the San Frans- no, the New York system."
I knew I must get her off the ship soon,if this is allowed to continue,Jun'ko may be able to convince Strum into stealing phaser capacitors and quantum torpedoes,something that I must avoid.Just hope that Strum can't read minds and know what I'm thinking.

-In orbit of Planet Manhattan-

I tuned on the Colonial News Service with my tricorder,which is linked to the ship's sensors:

"The Liberty Security Force maintains that there is no proof the attack on Freeport-7 is deliberate, but sources inside the LSF suggests that evidences point to the dangerous criminal organization-The Order. We will keep you up today as the story develops."

Re: Star Trek:Akira - Phased Realities,a ST-FL fic

"In other news, a strange capital ship, known as "USS Akira" , which hail from the "United Federation of Planets" arrived in the system yesterday, curious citizens surround the ship...."

That's what happens when your ship has her name, registries and the words "United Federation of Planets" emblazoned on the hull.
.....Sometimes I wish we have cloaks.....I thought as I walked into the ship's bar.

I ordered a mugful of cold water, which is my favorite drink for starting the day.

I looked out of the viewing window.... All of Manhattan's landmass are covered by a titanic city, incredible, no Federation worlds are at that level of development. But I wonder how much waste and pollution needs disposal everyday, they seems to have the planet clean and well, but the several large debris field we saw as we entered the system seemed to indicate they just dump all their trash into space. Pity.

There are two stations in orbit of the planet, Newark and Trenton. Newark is the more impressive of the two. Owned by Interspace Commerce, a corporation with a flashy name but in essence, just a gigantic insurance firm. I was told that stations like Newark are present in the capital system of the four main houses, Liberty, Bretonia, Kusari and Rhineland. It makes one wonder what happened with the Hispania....

Captain's log, stardate 57680.67
We were invited by the Liberty Navy to escort a visiting Rheinland Admiral's flagship-the RNC Donau. Since we are in orbit researching how Manhattan's biosphere can coexist with such massive artificial constructions and are not leaving soon anyway, I accepted.

It will be more like a Honor Guard though, since we are only escorting the Donau's final approach to Newark and Liberty is one of the safest place in this universe, as I was informed.

End of log.

"Newark station, this is the RNC Donau, requesting to dock with your station, over."

The Donau was one of the blockiest ship I've ever seen, though due to it's name and it's vaguely round mid-section, I felt the Rhineland Cruiser was more like a space donut than anything else.

"Affirmative, Donau, you are clear for docking port six, Liberty welcomes you at that moor.."

"Attention all ships, five ships with Order identification are going straight for the Donau, they are armed with high-yield warheads, I repeat, high-yield warheads!"

"Understood, Akira, all vessels, power up weapons!"

"Affermative, ready to engage."

"Roger, tracking incoming ships."

"Order ships, this is Newark station, you are entering restricted space, stand down at once or we will open fire."

"We are here to protect the president!"

"They launched the missiles! Phasers tracking....Fire!" Strum said as the missiles streaked from the ships to the Donau.

We all stared at the missiles, dozens of orange-red nadion streams instantly caught on with each missiles and they blew fantastically.

"Yes! We shot them out of the sky!" he said triumphantly as the missiles exploded harmlessly.

The Order ships seemed to break off, but suddenly, they charged at the Donau, it took vital seconds for us to realize what was happening.

"They are RAMMING THE DONAU!" Strum said in horror.

"Lock phasers and fire!"

"WE ARE TOO LATE!" Strum Screamed.

On cue, the ships slammed into the bridge of the Donau, the Donau lost control, veered off it's course and crashed catastrophically into Newark Station.

This reminded me of the K-7 accident, only that this is no accident.

After the shock settled, we began to pull our selves together.

I went to the bar again, not to drink my worries off, no, that will only make matters worse. I ordered another glass of cold water.

"Captain, we should talk." It was Slaavok, I sat in front of him and he began "Captain, I believe I should not mention this to you, but I think I know why the Order want to destroy the Donau, even if it will cost them their lives."

"Why?"

"As the Donau arrived, I conducted a deep scan on the ship, it was not particularly remarkable in Starfleet standards except one thing: the Admiral."

"He sure had his enemies."

"No, Captain, the Admiral's biosign, it was most strange. He had a kind of parasite inhibiting his body. His fellow crewperson were not. I found it interesting and investigated further, my results now indicate that this parasite can influence one's behavior, and can impregnate more hosts, thus spreading the parasite."

"This is very serious...."

"Yet this is not the most disturbing fact I found. The parasite radiates energy which can be picked up by advanced sensors or when the parasite is exposed from the host. I compared this energy with the ships that destroyed Freeport-7.

They match.

The Order must be aware of this and sought to prevent it from infecting major Liberty officials, namely President Jacobi."

Re: Star Trek:Akira - Phased Realities,a ST-FL fic

Congrats, AutoHummer500, on an interesting twist to an old story....

You welcomed comments so allow me to offer one using my editor hat.

You need to properly punctuate your story. Doing so will greatly increase the ease of reading it (the syntactic portion of one's brain has a much easier time of it if there are white spaces in the right places) and that will improve the verisimilitude -- the experience of being there, getting the reader immersed in the story and making them want to keep reading. Proper punctuation is all-too-rarely seen online and that's ok in casual chat, but once you put words into prose you are creating a product as a craftsman storyteller, and proper punctuation is one of the fundamental skills of the craft that every writer must learn.

The punctuation rules are:
- one space between words (i.e. "One two three.");
- no spaces on either side of the dash of a hyphenated word or phrase (i.e. "One-and-two-and-three.");
- one space after commas or semicolons (i.e. "One, two, three.");
- two spaces at the end of sentences, whether they are ended by a period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark (i.e. "One. Two! Three? Yeah, three.");
- if a sentence is quoted, the punctuation goes within the quotes and the spaces go outside the quotes (i.e. "One," he said, "two, three." I waited for "four", but he said no more.);
- two spaces after a full colon (i.e. The count order is: One; Two, then Three.).

The other rule of punctuation is learning when to use what. The simplest way to understand that is to remember that it represents an indicator of how the writer wants the prose to be read aloud. So, before you punctuate, as you punctuate, and after you punctuate, read the words aloud, or at least hear yourself in your head reading them aloud. Where you take pauses, and how long the pause are, will indicate where to place commas and periods.

A couple of less common punctuation symbols are the ellipsis ("..."), the "en" dash ("--"), and the "em" dash ("---"). I'm not going to go into the rules for the en and em dashes right now.

In your first use of the ellipsis ('surround the ship...."') you use it correctly: three dots for the ellipsis followed by one dot for the end-of-sentence period, for a total of four dots. Your second use is not strictly correct '.....Sometimes I wish we have cloaks.....', but is acceptable as an alternative to italicizing the text, which is the conventionally acceptable way of denoting specific thoughts, since I don't believe the board supports italics in messages. Normally, unless an ellipsis is used to terminate a sentence it is only three dots. Your third use of the ellipsis was also correct, as it was not used to terminate the sentence.

Re: Star Trek:Akira - Phased Realities,a ST-FL fic

Well, bugger it! Okay, nevermind about two spaces between sentences. The parser for this message builder is incorrectly stripping out all double spacing. Another artefact of the legions of semi-literate programmers out there.

Sigh.

__________________________
Life is a boundary phenomenon.
(And some life is more on the edge than others.)

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

Captain's log, stardate 57689.11

The Akira had just explored the area of space in the New York system called 'The Badlands', instead of a haunted place, scans indicate that it is actually a magnetic nebula with a pair of magnetic poles. There are strange asteroids in the nebula, they are aligned to the 'North' pole of the nebula. They turned out to be magnetic monopoles, not only an exotic substance, but also one of the vital materials needed to construct our Phase-Warp Drive. Thus I authorized collection of enough monopoles for our use and a little bit more for later use, should the need arises.

In the center of the nebula, there is a clearing, we found something extremely similar to our phase-sphere in the clearing. We don't know if it is artificial or natural, but it seems to have existed long enough for the Liberty Government to set up a research station there-Benford Station.

The station's master, a Dr. Van Pelt, seemed to dislike our presence and repeatedly demanded us to leave, even threatening to call upon the Navy. We don't want to damage to the relations with the Libertonian Government.So we left the clearing.

The nebula was considered dangerous probably due to a large pirate presence in the nebula, fortunately our encounters with the local pirates, the 'Liberty Rogues' has been peaceful since the pirates seems to realize attempting to raid a large, unknown ship is not a good idea.

We also found three wrecks of ships whose pilots died as the ship leaked massive amounts of radiation into the control cabin, and into surrounding space. I decided not to disturb them, out of respect. A jumpgate was found in the nebula, we don't know where it leads to, though.

We informed the LSF of our findings regarding the parasites, sadly, our warning was not heed and considered nonsense, we can only hope that the Order is sufficient to protect these people form the infestation.

We are currently entering the California System.

End of log.

"Captain, we are clearing the jumpgate." Alisha said.

"Good, helm, set course to-"

"Captain, we are being hailed on a three-way channel." Kamel should join a choir!

"Onscreen, as always."

"Mr. Trent! The captain of the USS Akira! We need to talk!" The owner of the voice seemed to have been hunted for ages.

"Why?" Another voice, presumably Trent's, said.

"Something's going on.... Out of the witnesses of Freeport-7, you and I are the only ones left in Liberty!" He was absolutely paranoid.

"They went home?" I asked.

"No.... they disappeared, gone! Please.... Meet me on Los Angeles!"

"That will not be necessary. We can talk on the Akir-"

His paranoia turned to hysteria"Wait.... It's they, it's THEY!"

"Captain," began Strum, "three defenders, on intercept course."

"Brandon Rowlett, you are under arrest, cut your engines and stand down." The flight leader said coldly.

"NO!" Brandon was filled with pandemonium, and began to make a run for the jump gate.

"All units, fire missiles."

Instantly streams of missiles sprouted from their launchers, and streaked for Rowlett's ship.

The missiles blew Rowlett's ship into vapor before I can order phasers to intercept those missiles. How can the Liberty kill people like this in cold blood?

"Civilian ships, this is a classified navy operation, do yourself a favor and keep this a secret." The flight leader said as the flight headed for the jumpgate.

"All right." said Trent, who didn't want to get into trouble, which was quite understandable.

"IN THE NAME OF THE LAW, STOP!" I bellowed in rage.

"Whose law, yours, Federationer?"

"YOURS," I argued, "you are executing people without giving them a chance of fair trial! And you cover up this unconstitutional activity by classifying them? You are no better than the Coalition you fought so long ago!"

"I've heard enough. Open fire."

"Holy! Strum, red alert! Engage!" Now they want us dead, too.

"Incoming missiles!"

"Evasive maneuvers!"

The shields rose just in time to absorb the first missile that hit us.

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

"Captain," Slaavok began his report, "their self destruction was efficient, no databanks were left, the cockpits had been vaporized along with the pilots with a antimatter charge. Only one piece of equipment is left intact."

"And it's ...." I asked.

"A laser weapon, scans show that it is compatible with ship of the colonies, though it would take minimum adjustments to install it on our ship."

"And why we want an extra gun on our ship?"

"It is just for your information only. It is identified as a 'Nomad Prototype'. Probably the code-name for a new Libertonian weapon."

"Interesting.... Beam it aboard for more testings."

"Sir," Garon said, "we just indirectly destroyed three Liberty ships in the middle of Liberty space. We are now enemies of the state."

"Not quite," I reasoned, "if this is indeed a classified operation, they won't dare to open fire on us in public, in fact, I think most of the Navy, even most of their top brass don't know anything about this, so we are in relatively little danger. But still, we better keep our stay in Liberty as short as possible. We will scan all points of interest in Libertonian space, and get out."

Captain's log, stardate 57702.8

We had now explored all we can in Liberty space and had all data saved into our databases.

I sent a massage several days ago to all of the crew asking if anyone of the crew can come up with a proper name for the 'Nomad Prototype'. I received only one name when the deadline was met-'Rowlett's Revenge', thanks to Ensign Sahiski Yroshi.

We had just rigged the 'Rowlett's Revenge' onto the weapons pod and test-fired it. It is not very efficient in terms of Starfleet technology and can not help too much should we encounter hostiles.

But there is a disturbing quality about the weapon. It produces the same energy signature as the parasites did. If Liberty is using the parasites as a weapon, we can assume that the Liberty government is now being slowly taken over.

We can not survive if the whole of Liberty is out to get us and we are sitting in the middle of Liberty space.

We are now heading to the independent Magellan System, named after the great explorer, we hope to find a safe haven for us there.

End of log.

"Captain, we are at Freeport-2." Alisha said.

"Good, prepare to-"

"Sir," although everyone hates to be cut off in mid-sentence, Kamel's voice made being cut off by her much less annoying, "three Liberty Cruisers! They are hailing."

"Seems they got us after all.... Onscreen." How could they find us here? We warped instead of using jumpgates just to throw them off!

"This is Captain Walker of the Liberty cruiser attack group South, do not open fire, we are on the same side as you!"

"Right, and you and your buddies come and assimilate us." It was my turn to lose trust in people. "How can you proof the otherwise?"

"Assimilate?! I know there's something wrong with the Navy but what are you talking about?"

"Lies."

"Why not I come to your ship by myself? If I do something you don't like, you and your buddies can kill me."

"Hmmm.... Slaavok, how do the parasites reproduce?"

"I understand your fear for the aerial transmission of the parasite, sir, but fortunately, they reproduce by a.... Most brutal and horrible, process of physical injection. It is very easy to notice."

"Good. Captain Walker, you may board."

A fully armed security team, led by Lt.Drayla, along with me, with a sweating hand on a phaser, waited on the shuttlebay.

Walker's Defender landed and three security officers aimed their heavy hand-held anti-vehicle phasers at the Defender.

Walker was a moderately tall man. He was dressed, in my opinion, more like a salesperson than a Navy officer, I reminded myself of different viewpoints of their people just to keep myself from laughing.

We made our way to the conference room on, again, a hovercart.

"Captain Walker, I hope that you don't mind about the drastic security measures, but we can't afford anyone onboard being infected."

"A cartoon in which the Jerrykillers, a band of mice-hunters, went and made sure that annoying mice gets what they deserved, and they are heavy armed, too bad they often got chewed up by hounds, though."

"Okay.... Remember the Donau?"

"Yes, the terrorist attack of the century."

"The visiting Admiral was killed not because of his fame, nor this is a attempt of disrupting peace. It's because he had this," I showed him a digram of the parasite, "influencing him, he came to Liberty to infect everyone in command, effectively taking Liberty for themselves."

"That's why the admirals of the Navy acted so strange lately. We were called into spacedock and I was to meet an admiral. Something like this popped out of his mouth, I fried it before it can touch me, but I knew Liberty is not safe and I rebelled."

"That means the parasite is infecting the chain of command.... How can this be? The admiral's taken out...."

"Worst, Rhineland had attacked Willard research Station, which happened to be working on some alien artifacts, with a full fleet."

"Wow, how can they do that without letting anybody noticing?"

"They used jumpholes and had a way to mask their movements in-system, perhaps using the nebula as cover."

"No.... Cloaks."

"You must be joking, that will take so much power that the Rhineland ships can't even power it."

"We witnessed the use of a cloak, when the parasites destroyed Freeport-7," I showed Walker the footage we took, "it seems cloaks is closer within reach than you think, if Rhineland is completely infected, they may be able to adapt these cloaks to the Rhineland ships."

"Oh my god...."

"Our chances are better if we join together." I offered.

"Yes. Then we shall work together."

Suddenly, something beeped, Walker pressed something on his headset and heard something, whatever it was, it was serious.

"Jun'ko!"

"The LSF commander?"

"Yes, and Trent, they are attacked, by the Liberty Navy, on orbit of Manhattan!"

"I knew them.... There's no time to waste,let's get saddled up and get going!"

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

Within a minute, we had beamed Walker and his ship back on his cruiser.

We formulated a plan: The Akira will proceed on maximum warp to Planet Manhattan, we will get Trent and Jun'ko safety on the ship. Walker will take a series of jumpholes that can quickly take his fleet on-site. We will try to hold the Liberty Navy off as we wait for Walker's taskforce.

"Good. Prepare the shuttlebays, when we drop out of warp we will need to get Trent and Jun'ko onboard as soon as possible, Mr. Slaavok, please prepare instructions compatible with colonial ships, we will upload it onto their navigation systems the moment we are in range.

Then the wait began.

"Captain, we are there, dropping out of warp now."

We found ourselves in the middle of a storm of energy bolts.

"The Unity is blocking the entrance! We are surrounded!" It was Jun'ko.

"Miss Alisha, position our ship so that our bow is facing the Liberty Battleship," I ordered, "Mr.Strum, lock phasers and fire on the fighters, save the quantums for the cruisers and battleships. Mr. Slaavok, reinforce all bow shield segments."

"Trent, I don't think we're going to make it out of this.... I'm sorr-"

"This is the Akira, we will cover you, dock with us, now!" I yelled into the comm.

"This may be our only shot.... Docking!"

We uploaded docking procedures onto their computers. The ships were leaking plasma and lost their shields and were practically in pieces.

"Lowering aft lower shields for them to dock." Garon, who was monitoring the docking, announced.

The stricken ships maneuvered themselves at the shuttlebay doors and slowly moved in.

"Good. We have to make that quick."

The Naval ships seemed flabbergasted at the development of the events. They hesitated their fire for a few seconds, and then instantly concentrated fire at the Akira once they realized what was happening. Unfortunately for them, they aimed at our bow section, which shields are up and reinforced. Trent and Jun'ko 's ships docked safely, though badly mauled.

"Walker here, we will take care of the battleship." Walker's taskforce came out of the West Point Academy trade-lane and began firing on the Unity.

"Good to see you here. We got the people safe and sound, let's get the blazes out of here."

"We can't go with the rest of the Liberty Navy chasing us, we will have to hold them off. Jun'ko and Trent must go while we distract them. King, go with them."

"Alright.... Mr.Garon, how are the repairs going?" The Akira class was once intended to be a fighter-carrier and thus had excellent automated repair systems for small craft.

"Almost done, we only need to replicate a few more of those Lavablades for their ships."

"Can I talk to them?"

"Here, sir," Garon handed me a mic.

"Trent, Jun'ko, go without us, find whatever safe haven you can and contact us after the coast is clear, King will help you."

"Thanks for the save," a coarse voice, Trent's, said, "thought I was gonna die."

"I know a friend of mine, there is a safe place that we can hide." Jun'ko is pretty resourceful, not surprising for a veteran military commander.

"Good, repairs are complete, engaging launch sequence...." I tapped a few 'buttons' on the console. "Good luck."

The two ships slid smoothly off the shuttlebay in much better shape.

"We still need to destroy the Unity for them to get out safely." Strum said.

"That's it, lock all weapons on the Unity and.... FIRE!"

The main cannon of Walker's cruisers and the Akira's barrage lit space up spectacularly, the Unity's hull quickly succumbed under the intense fire.

"This is battleship U--ty,we are taking heavy damage and have many causalities! We need immediate assistance and ---" The rest was muffled by a screaming alarm.

Two cruisers that were on our port when we arrived sneaked on our aft and unloaded their main guns on the Akira.

"Captain!" Strum said, alarmed, "Aft shields are at 74%! Two cruisers are bearing on us!"

"Evasive maneuvers! Fire everything we have on them! Helm, prepare for a high-energy turn!"

The Akira, in the utter surprise of the cruiser's captains, turned until it faced the two cruisers within the fraction of a second, then she snapped off a burst of torpedoes at the two ships as phasers sliced the cruiser's hulls.

The cruisers quickly erupted into balls of expanding gas and plasma.

I watched with a grim satisfaction. "Now lock on the Unity and fire!"

It didn't take long before the Unity finally gave in. "All hands abandon ship ...." The bow of the ship detached itself from the rest of the ship after Walker's Cruisers hit the Unity's magazine. The engines blew off after a well-placed shot of a quantum torpedo. The ship's reactor overloaded, the containment walls tried to resist to massive force of an exploding reactor. It gave it's best but failed. Then the Unity blew, along with her crew, into millions of atoms.

"Trent and Jun'ko are safe. Now we need to get out of here before he rest of the Nave rushes here. We will meet up in Magellan." Walker said.

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

Captain's log, stardate 57705.54

We made ourselves the enemies of Liberty, right and proper. A one-trillion credit bounty had been set on The Akira and each of Walker's cruisers. Bounty hunters can't deal too much damage, but if they inform the Navy, we will be as good as dead.

Worst, our ship's on every news screen in the colonies and we can't show ourselves in Liberty nor independent space without being attacked by bounty hunters or naval taskforces. Thus we must get to a safe place where no one will come looking. Rhineland is out of the question due to the infestation, Kusari is too far, thus we settled on Britonia or more accurately, Tau-31.

We got more data on jumpholes form Walker, a jumphole is not a stable wormhole as we assumed, but a ruptured phase-sphere that achieved partial stability. Two halves of the sphere form a full, usable jumphole. By partial it means that the halves must be phase-aligned in order for the transition to be possible.

Our plan is to go to the Tau-31 system through Britonia, we will hide there and see if we can find a way to neutralize the parasite.

We are now on course to a jumphole that leads to Manchester system with Walker's taskforce.

End of log.

"The jumphole is phase-aligned,sir. We can pass." Slaavok reported after a deep-scan on the jumphole.

"We are ready to enter the jumphole." Alisha informed after staring at her instruments for a short while.

"Take us in, one-half impulse."

The ride was like the one that brought us to this place, I wished for a parachute or a better inertial dampener system. Or both.

We came out of an ice-field in the system, I was told that Britonia systems are heavily polluted, but it seems that Manchester is not one of them.

"This is Walker, we had cleared the jumphole." He continued after a series of beeps, probably scanner readouts. "Watch out for bounty hunter patrols coming from Sheffield station, it's full of them."

"Understood. Now where to?" I asked.

"A jumphole to Leeds, it's just outside the field." Walker said.

I sighed, the series of events lately had put everyone on incredible stress. "All right, let's hope we don't bump into any bounty hunter patrols." I said dryly. "Mr. Strum, Yellow alert, just in case."

"Yes, sir." Strum said.

The trip was uneventful, we reached the jumphole without encounters. It was fortunate for us that the bounty hunters are concentrating on independent space, not Britonia.

"Mr. Slaavok," I asked, "can you do something to ease the... err... falling sensation when we enter a phase-sphere or jumphole?"

"The inertial dampeners cannot help since the sensation is due to the energy inputs onto your nervous systems, not actually the fall. But by remodulating the shields in a way that it is out of phase with the phase-sphere, the shields can prevent the sensation, though it will drain the shield considerably.... We will emerge on the other side with only 60% shields."

"Try it out on this one.... Probably that's why they warn you not to use a jumphole but a gate." I said

"Indeed, the gate is a artificial wormhole generator while jumpholes are a kind of phase sphere. I had made the necessary modifications."

"Good, Mrs. Alisha, take us in."

This one was much smoother. We barely felt anything at all. We also emerged with 95% shields, which was much better than expected, though Slaavok seemed slighly disappointed with his miscalculation.

We appeared in the middle of a nebula, that is, until sensors indicated large concentrations of sulphuric, nitric, phosphoric, carbonic and hydrochloric acid, along with a large amount of particulates and carbon soot. We are in a smog cloud. One formed from intense industrial activities in Leeds. I began to realize the extent of how badly polluted Britonia is.

Our next destination is a jumphole to Edinburgh system, it is in a trans-uranium asteroid field, rich in uranium and trans-uranium radioactive elements. Near it is LD-14, a processing station for radioactive compounds.

The trip was again, blissfully uneventful. We passed the jumphole comfortably and found ourselves in a purple-light-blue nebula. In the Edinburgh system. A few ships came along and hailed us: "We are the gaians, Liberty ships, what is your purpose here, and what's that strange cruiser-thing you have with you?"

"The name's the Akira," I said to protect the dignity of the ship and crew, "not strange cruiser-thing. Our story is too long and too weird to explain so quickly. Let's just say we're a rouge fleet which barely escaped Liberty."

"Ahh!" The pilot was surprised, "you chaps blew the Unity!"

"Yes," Walker admitted.

"Good for you, well, I'm done with my patrol anyways, bye!"

Apart from the amusing interlude, nothing special happened, we safely entered the Tau-31 system.

We figured that the only refuge we could take is the field near IMG outpost Holman, the Akira only needed energy for the replicators to work. So I had the ship loitering around with the bussard ramscoops on, which worked pretty well. The cruisers were a bit more complicated, the Akira can replicate the spare parts but the cruisers' fuel and supplies must be obtained by purchasing them from the outpost by posing as freelancers with our small crafts.

During this time, as we tuned in to increasingly-disturbing news of Rhineland advancements, we also did some more research. It turned out that the Rowlett's Revenge contained no parasite nor living matter, it was merely a weapon tuned to the same signature of a parasite via mechanical means. Why this was done was not known, this will not increase the efficiency of the weapon or make it more deadly.

Life went on like this for about a week. Until one day, Walker hailed me on the Akira as I was digging in my lasagna: "Trent and Jun'ko had found someone who can help us to solve the mystery, but they need to get out of Britonia first.... Rhineland's blockaded the Leeds system. We will stay here, can you go and give Jun'ko a hand?"

"Of course." I answered, I am raring to get out of this frozen system.

"Red Alert! All hands to battlestations." I ordered after a turbolift ride to the bridge, "Mrs. Alisha, set course to Leeds. Mr. Strum, charge phasers and load quantum torpedoes, prepare to engage Rhineland ships!"

"Mrs. Alisha, push the impulse to the maximum, we must get to the gate fast! Mr. Strum, forget about the Rhinelanders! Mr. Slaavok, reinforce shields at the Rhineland ships' direction with all spare energy you can get! Use battery charge and reroute power from sensors if you have to, but the shield must not fall!"

"On it!" Alisha was agitated.

"Understood." Slaavok responded calmly.

"We are being hailed!" Kamel had a tinge of tension with her voice.

"Go ahead."

"This is the Rhineland battleship Bismarck, you are violating a Rhineland blockade against a few dangerous criminals, turn back at once or we will destroy you." The captain warned imposingly.

"This is the Federation starship Akira," I decided to reply at the same format as the Rhineland captain did, "we are on an important rescue mission that is vital for the safety of the Sirius sector and beyond, please let us pass, if you must stop us with force, we will forced to defend ourselves." I replied in defiance as the Akira charged at the gate.

"This is your last chance," the Rhineland captain sounded as if he could crush rocks with his teeth, "turn back of face the consequences!"

I remembered the Nimbus incident, "What sort of consequences do you have in mind exactly?" I asked, then in a colder tone, I said: "Attacking a Federation starship is an act of direct aggression to the United Federation of Planets. We won't hesitate to fire." The Akira began to enter the jumpgate.

"You will die, NOW!"

On cue, green plasma began raining at our direction, but they were too late. The Akira was already in transit through the jumpgate.

"Okay, Mr. Slaavok, normalize energy distribution. We can only hope that Rhineland ships had not yet entered Britonia. Else we may be in hot waters."

"Mr. Strum," I began, "fire at any Rhineland ships on sight, no questions asked, should we meet any on the other side."

"Yes, sir!"

We emerged near Glasgow Outpost and were immediately hailed: "This is Bowex Outpost Glasgow to unknown ship, how did you break that Rhineland blockade?"

"We just ran fast, are there any Rhineland ships spotted in the area?"

The reply confirmed our fears: "Yes, several squadrons of fighters and gunboats, they are attacking anything on-sight. The battleships Dunkirk and Wellington are due in five hours but they were attacked en-route by Rhineland ships. Almost all sector peacekeeping ships were shot down and Leeds was being sieged. Battleships York had moved to defend the gate and this station."

"We need to get to Leeds to get a few people out, do you think we can get some help?"

"No, there is the Cromwell on orbit of Leeds.... "

"Thanks, we are going."

"Alright.... Good luck."

"Mrs. Alisha, warp speed to high orbit around Leeds, once we got there...." I quickly described my plan.

"That's crazy," Strum said, "but might just work."

Soon, we arrived at Leeds, the Rhineland ships immediately turned and fired on the Akira without warning, suddenly, the Akira popped forward, and another Akira followed, there were now two Akiras.

The Akira at the back took several hundred plasma blasts and faded. The Akira engaged her atmospheric drives and began the descent into Leeds.

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

"This is the Akira," I began, "we are in the atmosphere on Leeds, closing in on the main starport, can you come and meet us?"

"A cruiser landing on a planet?" Jun'ko was surprised, after all, no large ships here can land like this. "You people impress me every time we meet."

"No time for chatter, we need you to get what you need in the Akira the moment we land. We broke through two Rhineland blockades just to get to you."

"We will fly by ourselves, but Sinclair and Quintaine can use your cargo space and lab equipment."

"All right, engaging landing procedures.... Now!"

"Landing gear, engaged." Alisha informed.

Thick, stubby landing gears unfolded themselves at the bottom of the ship.

"Touching down.... Done."

"We are here."

I and an away team met the group in the equipment bay of the starport, the air was pungent to the point of suffocation, so I had to issue full-body suits to keep the away team and me alive.

"I don't know how you people managed this...." I said once we met Jun'ko, "This place, with all due respect, stinks to the galactic core! And you can walk around as if nothing is happening...."

"One you get used to it," another voice cut in, a man in a brown jacket walked to us. He was that survivor I saw leaving the Akira! "you won't feel too bad, heck, you probably will start to like it! By the way, I'm Trent, nice to meet ya."

"Captain Sy, USS Akira." I extended my arm.

We shook hands."Thought you are aliens. Turns out to be humans in fancy suits. This universe is boring."

I overheard Strum trying to impress Jun'ko and Sinclair. When we return to the ship, I thought, I will have him in a cold shower and a good disciplinary talk to top it off.

"We thought we could do without all the shooting either, so, what's the mystery? What did you find that can let us solve it?"

A almost bald and slightly fat man came up to me after arranging for a few crates to be loaded onboard the Akira. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Professor Quintaine of the Royal Society. I can talk to you in detail but only after you got us to safety. How dare Rhineland do such a thing against Her Majesty is not known, but we will find out. Also your ship's pretty impressive, top-notch scientific instruments and a helpful crew, not to mention proper tea readily available, good for you, young man."

I chuckled, "Well, we sort of take it for granted. I thought you get tea pretty easily."

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

(Hey! We survived! Yay. Though they will begin doing the 'real thing' by mid-late October. Hang on to your towels and keep on trying to hitchhike out of here.)

"Take-off procedures initialized." Alisha said.

The ship lifted itself up and the landing gears fold back to their housing.

"Okay, everyone, let's get going." Jun'ko said over the comm, "We will go for the docking ring, let's meet up near the Battleship Cromwell. Is that okay with you?"

"Yes," I said into the mic, "of course."

As the Akira ascended, the thick, brown and hazy 'atmosphere' of the planet slowly faded away. The Cromwell was now a hazy shadow.

"Glad to out of that planet," Garon began, "the worst place you can set foot on is not one that's without air or uninhabitable, it's one of these, marginally habitable planets, with air full of toxins which concentration is just below lethal."

"Indeed," Slaavok said, "the toxic air can drastically shorten the lives of the inhabitants. I studied the local news network and found that the average lifespan of the people on Leeds is only about 55 to 69 years."

The Cromwell could be seen clearly now, upon spotting us the ship hailed. "This is HMS Cromwell to unidentified ships," a coarse voice said, "wait, it's the Akira! How did you chaps broke the blockade?"

"By running very fast." I decided not to mention our use of the Picard Maneuver.

"That's got to be really bloody fast, then. The Islington is arriving along the Wellington to break the blockade, I don't really want to ask for it but, can you lads think you can help us out?"

"What about the Dunkirk?"

"Blown straight to hell. Bloody Rhineland bombers. Her Majesty has declared war against Rhineland."

"This is insane," Jun'ko exclaimed in astonishment, "this is going to be worse than the 80-year war!"

"I know this is driving everyone bananas but we- Holy! They are coming for us! Six gunboats!"

"RED ALERT!" I yelled.

"They are hailing!" Kamel informed.

"This is the Rhineland Military," the officer sounded like a killing machine ready to get to work, "surrender the artifacts and we will lift the blockade and spare your lives."

"Come and take it!" Sinclair overridden the comm and yelled.

"Mrs. Kamel, how did she manage that?"

"Sir, she used the comm system in her ship, which is docked with us!"

"Well forget it! Mr. Strum! Fire at will!"

Phasers beams shot out of their banks and sliced the gunboats. One of the gunboat's main gun got cut clean off. Then another beam sliced the engines off like a hot knife through warm pruta (A Tellarite food that is very soft when warm, but chewy when cold).

Trent fired a missile into the bridge of another gunboat. It instantly lost control and kept on flying in the same circle, like some sort of zombie.

Jun'ko strafed a third one, Tobias fired missiles and torpedoes into the same gunboat. Her captain gave a scream across the comm as she died, along with the crew of her ship.

The Cromwell's guns blazed at the gunboats, one quickly crumbled.

"Four down!" Strum reported, "Two to go!"

"This is not the end." The gunboat captain said, "We will meet again."

And the two gunboats cloaked.

"Tracking their tachyon signature...." Garon said. "Damn! Lost them!"

"We need to get out of here," I said, "set course for the Tau-31 gate!"

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

We entered the trade lane to Stokes, everyone were tense, even the normally apathetic Slaavok.

"Prepare for incoming hostiles," I said, peering into the sensor read-outs, "we will have company on the other side, looks like the two gunboats and two squadrons of fighters."

The Rhineland ships were not targeting us, though, they were firing on Stokes, dealing heavy damage.

"This is Stokes Smelter," A desperate female voice said, "we are under attack by Rhineland warships," the communication broke up as a stream of energy blocked off the transmission, "requesting assistance!"

"I said we will meet again," said the persistent gunboat leader, "give up the artifact."

At the same moment a group of four gunboats uncloaked in tight formation. I suddenly have an idea.

"Strum, do we have our compliment of Chain-Reaction Pulsars with us?"

"Yes, sir, you want one to be fired at the gunboat formation?"

"Exactly."

A red comet-like bolt flew lazily out of the weapons pod.

It hit one of the four gunboats and bounced off all four, as each gunboat made contact with the pulsar, they erupted from the inside out. The pulsar shrunk as each impact took some of the pulsar's energy, the weakened pulsar still managed to take out an escort squadron which happened to uncloak next to the gunboats.

The rest of the Rhineland ships turned and began firing. The Akira's shields rippled from each hit, but it held.

"Fire at will!" I ordered, "Distract them from the freelancers!" I am tired of referring Trent and the others by their names especially we now work as a team.

"Yes sir!" Strum replied as his fingers danced on the weapons control.

Phaser beams proceeded to cut a gunboat in half, like a Starfleet version of a Borg cutting beam.

Tobias and Trent made a torpedo run at the last boat as Jun'ko took out the fighters.

Their aim were true, two explosive-packed torpedoes smashed themselves into the starboard of the gunboat. Green vapor began leaking out of the large hole made.

We suddenly realized that they had just blown right through the layers of armor, hull and the reactor containment walls. The gunboat proceeded to blow like a punctured balloon.

"Only the fighters left!" Trent said through the comm.

"Mr. Strum, lock phasers and fire."

The fight was just unfair from now on. The fighters stood little chance against a Starfleet heavy cruiser and the freelancers.

As the last fighter disappeared in a puff of green smoke, we entered the tradelane to the Tau-31 Gate.

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

"Jun'ko," I was worried about the blockade at the Tau-31 side of the gate," at least three Rhineland battleships are waiting for us on the other side, we ran into them on our way here.... Maybe we can distract them to buy some time for you people to get out, but they may send fighters, lots of fighters."

"We'll manage, we've survived fights worse than that. But how about you?"

"We can just hope that Walker's group will come and bail us out."

"Walker? How did he get here?"

"We tagged along with him after we escaped Manhattan, made a trip through so many jumpholes that I lost count. Walker's cruiser group is hiding near Outpost Holman, once we get to the other side, I will call for him."

"Alright, we can only hope for the best."

"We are coming out of the trade-lane, sir." Alisha said.

I looked into the sensor readout,"We have company."

Garon announced what I saw:"A Rhineland cruiser, four gunboats and several wings of fighters, the York is taking severe damage! Glasgow Station is losing structural integrity!"

"Lock Quantums at the cruiser! Phasers, target the gunboats!"

The Akira did something that Starfleet ships don't normally do: she engaged five targets simultaneously. Quantum torpedoes shot out of the ship as the phasers began cutting the gunboats down.

"Direct hit!" Strum said triumphantly "That cruiser is out of action!"

A gunboat closed in to attack the Akira, it was cut cleanly in half as if by a gigantic katana.

The Freelancers hit the fighters hard, several turned into expanding, green blossoms of death.

Another gunboat was decapitated as a phaser strike struck the bridge. It proceeded to crash into another gunboat, destroying both.

Even with most of it's comrades lost, the last gunboat fought on, but soon, she was taken down by the combined firepower of the Akira, the Freelancers and the barely functioning Battleship York.

The rest of the Rhineland fighters cloaked, eluding our sensors.

"Thanks for saving us," the commander of the battered outpost said, "one minute later and we would be space dust."

"Glasgow Outpost," Tobias said, "After we pass through the gate, you must lock it."

Re: Star Trek:Akira-Phased Realities, a ST-FL fic

The Akira shot out of the Tau-31 Jumpgate. Green bolts of plasma and tachyon from three Rhineland Battleships failed to welcome us.

In fact, nothing was there.

"What in blazes...." I muttered.

"Wait.... I am detecting a message drone, a Liberty one," said Garon, "it's broadcasting something, it is encoded but it seems to be decoding itself.... it is a message to us.... Onscreen."

"This is Walker, we got some help and lured the battleships away, don't worry about us, we are pretty safe, at least much safer than you do. Get these people to safety, we will contact you when the coast is clear."

"So, where do we go now?" I asked over the comm.

"I have to talk to someone at Shinkaku Station," said Quantane, "he can arrange for a safe place for me to work this out."

"Shinkaku Station," began Tobias, "it's just over at the next system, Tau-29. I am uploading the coordinates. Let's go."